


Never Stray and Never Falter

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Limbless Eren, M/M, Rough Sex, Spoilers for Chapters 42-50, The dub-con is debateable but I will tag it, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 22:03:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1664057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stick to your missions, and pray to god you don't find reason for doubt. </p><p>Based off a kink meme prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Stray and Never Falter

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this is the cruelest thing I've ever written but it comes pretty close. 8( Apologies in advance.
> 
> The original fill can be found [here.](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/8414.html?thread=7642590#cmt7642590)

Even while sleeping Eren’s presence was like a flame, twitching and flickering oh so closely towards spilled whiskey or loose traces of gun powder. Ready to set everything in his wake alight. His limp form was a chokehold on them as they scavenged Shingansina, looting broken houses for packs to carry dusty wooden torches and cooking ware in, as well as a few bandages and medicines in glass bottles (Ymir’s request for Historia, who wasn’t going to make a point of being the only person in the party who could not will away a wound with a little steam). They even found a bottle of good wine and some dried fruits, only slightly crusty, for the taking, but none celebrated too loudly for fear of waking him early. 

It wasn’t until Maria was nothing more than a looming shadow in the distance that the dangling bundle on Bertolt’s back began to wriggle. Eren had grown back everything from his shoulders to the tips of his fingers several hours prior, and now he was squirming lethargically with every bump and step.

“Should I put him down?” Bertolt was twisting along with Eren, clutching tight at the straps around his shoulders and thinning his lips in trepidation. “He’s going to kick me if I carry him.”

“Tie his hands first. He can walk.”

Ymir scoffed, helpfully angling her torch closer to Bertolt. “Sure, he’ll walk. You got a leash to drag him with?”

Historia said nothing. The furrow between her brows grew deeper and she reached without thinking for Ymir’s hand, her thin fingers enclosed around it as sure as sailor’s knots. 

Reiner was helping Bertolt free of his burden, working swiftly and with firm grips should Eren suddenly struggle at his fullest. His hands had been tied behind him before, when they had been fleeing from the Corps and Reiner was still clutching his friend and their captive to his neck. But after they had broken free and Reiner left his Titan as a steaming corpse for the night, Bertolt began to complain about the hands digging into his back. Since Eren was out cold from a vicious knock to the head (Bertolt claimed it was just the unfortunate combination of the bumpy ride and the stone-like armor on the Armored Titan’s skin, but privately all thought him the culprit) they had let his limbs hang loose. Just for a little while, they reasoned, because he was still sleeping and they could all breathe a little easier when they looked at him. It was easier to pretend he was just resting without the ropes or the gag, almost as if he was simply ill and they were carrying him for his own good.

Reiner was about to put the knot together, the roped coiled around Eren’s wrists, when he suddenly jolted to life. His eyes blazed open. In one thin breath he comprehended all he needed to know, pupils shrunk to pinpricks as his stare flicked from Reiner to Bertolt.

Though Reiner yanked brutally on the rope Eren was already tearing away to the other side, and one hand ripped loose, the memory of the rope scraped in red over his knuckles. He brought it immediately to his mouth. With a fearful gasp Bertolt snatched his wrist and fought to pull it away, just barely dodging the snap of Eren’s teeth into his own arm. 

“Stop struggling, Eren!” Reiner shouted. “We’re too far now! Just stay still and listen!”

Predictably, he was hit in the eye with a viperous glob of spit. Eren twisted, head knocking to the side as he tried to haul his arm back from Bertolt, but his gaze landed on Historia and he stopped.

“Krista?” he called. She froze to the spot, and said nothing in return. Eren gulped. “Krista! Help me! Help get these—“

“She’s not helping you, she’s with us!” Bert interjected. “Now just hold –“ He was swatted in the face and forced to scramble for Eren’s wrist again.

Ymir edged in front of the smaller girl. “She’s with _me._ And her name’s not Krista. It’s Historia.”

“Hist-- _Goddammit!_ ” Eren was snarling, wriggling, but it was useless now. Reiner had pinned him to the ground on his chest, swiped the rope around both of his wrists and tied the whole affair up. Bert backed away and wiped his brow. “You stupid motherfuckers!”

“Eren. Listen to me, all right? We’re too far gone now. It’s over. We’ve passed Wall Maria.”

The struggle stilled. Eren was panting, but his eyes rolled up to meet Reiner’s even as his cheek was mashed into the grass. “…So then…”

“So then it’s over. No one’s coming.”

Getting the right angle with his head pressed to the ground was difficult, but Eren craned his neck to find Historia and Ymir. His jaw was dropped in open dismay, eyes watering. “But…then where are they? They were coming for us. Krista, you were with them right?”

Historia looked to Ymir. “What do I say?” she whispered, aghast. 

“HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST OF THEM?” Eren shouted. Neither girl was willing to answer. He writhed, and had to rub his nose through the dirt to find Bertolt on the other side. “Did you – did they – you can’t be serious. You can’t be fucking serious!”

“Eren.” Reiner clapped his hand on his shoulder, and Eren flinched from head to toe like a bug. “You’ve got two choices right now. If you promise to be quiet and not run away, or turn into a Titan, we’ll let you keep your arms and you can walk. It’ll be easier on everyone. But if we have to keep fighting you we’re not going to have a choice. You understand?”

There was something horrific about the way Eren’s eyes were bulging, about how his lip twitched. He looked rather like a corpse, staring down into the grass without a single motion. Save for that lip. There was no indication that he had even heard Reiner, so the larger boy gave him a shake and Eren flinched again. “Keep my arms?” he repeated, low and raw. “After all that you’ve done, you’re getting squeamish about a thing like that?”

The distance they had come makes it no easier to stare the moment down. All four knew that Eren waking would shatter the semblance of peace, brittle and heart pounding as it had been. Reiner had to swallow before he spoke again. “No one wants to hurt you, Eren. We’ve all had enough of that. Come on. Just be reasonable for once.”

The passing seconds hit like strikes of thunder as Eren gave the offer thought. When he did relent he nodded just once, and there was such a methodical drag to the motion that it took them all a moment to recognize what it was.

Bertolt was sending urgent but silent messages to Reiner from over the boy’s back, shaking his head back and forth. Reiner motioned for him to calm down before he hefted Eren upright. The remnants of grass and dirt down his front looked like the purposeful camouflage they had learned about in classes together, which none had taken a lick of stock in except Sasha. “We’re going to keep moving now. So just follow Bertolt and me and we’ll all be okay.”

Eren’s glare was now lashing into Historia, who was uncertain of how to take the burning intent without giving some form of apology. But she hadn’t done anything wrong to him, she thought earnestly, even as stones swelled inside her and sunk her gut to the lowest depths possible. She shouldn’t have to be saying sorry for this now. This was Bertolt and Reiner’s doing.

Which Eren was not about to let go unpunished. The moment Reiner passed him to Bertolt and turned his back, there was an abrupt whirl of action. Bertolt had been knocked over and Eren was hurling himself to the ground with him, clamping his thighs around the fallen boy’s neck and squeezing, crushing. Bertolt’s face was already red and he was punching aimlessly at any part of Eren he could reach. It was a move Annie had used once or twice during training until the instructor had told her that it was too lewd to practice on her classmates.

There was nothing lewd about the spitfire rage in Eren’s snarl, or the blue-lipped whistles Bertolt gave in lieu of screams. 

Reiner leaped into the fray to beat Eren back, ripping his legs out of the chokehold. Bertolt had to roll to his side, wheezing for his breath as Reiner wrestled with Eren all over again. Somehow he had already worked the knot loose and was trying to claw out Reiner’s eyes.

“DIE! JUST ROLL OVER AND DIE YOU FUCKER! MURDERER! YOU’VE KILLED THEM ALL!”

“GODDAMMIT, EREN!” Reiner clocked him across the face and Eren crashed into the ground. He was trapped there when Reiner dropped to kneel on his back. He hollered, a broken sound like an animal wounded. Reiner grappled for his swinging arms. “Bert! Get over here! Hold his arms out!”

“Is that necessary?” Historia cried. “We shouldn’t have to – can’t you just tie him up?”

“Don’t look,” Ymir said thinly, even as her stare never strayed from Eren’s fighting form. “He’ll heal, it’ll be okay.”

“Even so, that’s just…” 

When he approached Bertolt shoved a makeshift gag down Eren’s mouth, muffling his screams, and was now yanking one wrist out as far to the left as he could. Reiner rose and rounded Bertolt to stand near Eren’s shoulder, foot clamping on his chest, halting the squirming from the ribs up. The shrieking was hardly dimmed by the cloth.

Historia flung herself in the other direction, palms pressed into her eyes, and Ymir chased after her. She caught her in a one-armed embrace, holding the torch wide and away with the other, and hid her face in Historia’s hair, wishing she could have deafened the vilifying thud of sword on bone for them both. The sound repeated not long after and Eren’s misery dwindled to wrenching sobs. That would be the right arm. Historia rattled and muttered old childhood rhymes to herself, flinching when the cacophony persisted. 

A third thud followed, and they knew the legs were gone too. 

Eren’s screams could have split the earth.

~*~

Agony had drained the fight out of Eren. Even the steam was diminished, coming out of the pinched ends of his stumps in anemic drizzles. He hung from Bertolt’s back silently, pale and sweating and focused resolutely at the ground below until they stopped amongst a thick forest. There were sturdy branches quite high up, and it was as likely a place as any for them to stop for the day. Reiner suggested they find themselves some food first. Eren was set down against a trunk under his watch, and Bertolt, who looked grateful to gain some distance from the boy, took Ymir and Historia out to scavenge for something worthwhile.

For some time Eren didn’t deign to speak to or even look at Reiner. But Reiner couldn’t stop his own gaze from flicking back to him, though it threw his stomach into unhappy rolls and twists every time. The stumps caught his attention again and felt cold washes through the veins of his thighs, his arms. Sympathy pains.

They ought to have taken the boots off the legs, he realized suddenly. No one had wanted to touch the severed limbs after the deed was done and so they remained laid out and lonesome on the field, cookies on a platter for any Titans that happened to be roving by. The blunder meant that Eren would now be barefoot for the rest of the way, if he did grow back his legs in full before they reached home. That, and now his pant legs were shaved down to scarcely three fingers’ width past his groin. He hadn’t grown much since that afternoon but there were budding thighs peeking out from the ragged edges already. He would look outright obscene this time tomorrow. 

He looked obscene now. Reiner didn’t realize he had been so transfixed by the pale inch of skin until he felt Eren’s glare carving him out for it.

“Does it still hurt?” Reiner ventured, mostly sincerely. Now that the skin had pulled together into nubs the pain should have died down completely, but it was the least he could do to ask. “We’ve picked up some stuff from an old town earlier.” He neglected to mention which. Eren would probably roll himself over to Reiner and try biting him to death. “I could see if we’ve got anything to numb it.”

“Why are you even bothering?” Eren remarked coldly. Reiner ignored this by burrowing into the packs. If he committed to doing something about it maybe Eren would calm down a little. 

He pulled the wooden slat off the top of the medicine box and fished out the bottles one by one. “Some of the labels are hard to read, but I think this one…”

“Do you even know what those are?” 

He had shifted. Leaning over. Reiner frowned up at Eren and worried that he might topple, but for now he seemed to be doing fair enough on his own. He was only taking survey of the bottles, head tilted and eyes narrowed without malice. His lips moved in silence, mouthing out the names he read there, and Reiner found himself wetting his own lips. Eren was the most obtuse person he knew. He carried himself with zero care – or knowledge – of what people might think. There wasn’t a thought that ran through the kid’s brain that didn’t strike out on the surly curve of his mouth.

“Do you?” 

Eren gave him a piercing stare. “Some of them,” he conceded.

Reiner returned to fishing through the bottles, picking up two likely candidates. “Wasn’t your dad a doctor or something?”

“Can you just stop with the fucking small talk? You don’t give a shit and neither do I.” Eren retreated back to the tree, tilting his head against the bark and rolling to the side. His stare was lost in the canopy far above. “They’re probably all too weak by now to do much. Medicines don’t last forever.”

He was likely right. Reiner had been wondering the same thing, but at the time he didn’t want to say. He packed them away and slid the box back into the open sack. “We got them for Historia. Just in case.”

Eren snorted. “ _Historia._ ”

Neither said a word beyond that. 

When the other three returned with a plump rabbit and some savory leaves plucked off low laying plants, they managed to make a hodgepodge soup for all five of them. Water was ladled out of a nearby creek into the pots Ymir had carried out of Shingansina, leaving the soup sour and just a bit gritty but still mostly palatable, but mouths still watered as they waited for the boiling to finish.

It was elected nearly unanimously, even on her own part, that Historia was to feed Eren. Once it was ready the rest settled down with their own bowls as she knelt by the tree they had Eren propped up on, stirring his soup so that the first spoonful got as much greens and rabbit as possible. 

All the while Eren watched her, face so immaculately still that he might have been mistaken for a doll with such large, unblinking eyes. With a little rest he seemed to have recovered much of his strength, even if he was still ghostly white and lacking in limbs. “So you finally gave up?”

“Huh?” Historia said. She had been about to press the spoon to his lips, and lowered it a little out of consideration.

“That bullshit goddess act. You gave it up.”

Ymir was sitting straighter, attention snapped firmly on the two of them. Her eyes narrowed to dark slits. Historia gaped, uncertain of how to respond.

“You know. How you always tried to please everyone. I guess there was no point in it anymore, because it wasn’t really about caring for people anyway. It was just about being the kind of girl people liked.” His lip was curling. Eren’s voice had cracked a few times during their training but had never gone so deep as to shock. Right now it seemed he was speaking from the lowest pit of his gut, a coarseness coating each word with a loathing Historia had never seen nor heard from him. “And now they’re all probably dead, so you don’t have to pretend any more. There’s no one left to impress. Is that right?”

“What?” The spoon was trembling in her hand. Some of the soup slopped back into the bowl. “W-what are you saying, Eren? That’s not it at all.”

“No, that’s exactly it.”

“How about you shut up?” Ymir barked. She was up on her knees now. “You have no right to say that kind of shit to her, all right? So shut up and be glad she’s willing to feed you.”

Eren was alight now, laughing high and bitterly. “Why shouldn’t I? You know it’s the truth. You know that you both just left the people we’ve trained with for three years to die, right? You know that they would have kept chasing us. You just left them all behind for the Titans to eat, so you could both get away and live your happily ever after together. And the only reason that could have happened is that neither one of you ever gave a shit about them in the first place. Just like fucking Reiner and Bertolt.” He laughed even harder at the gauntness that had overtaken Historia, blood drained free of her cheeks and lips gone purple from the tight press she kept them in. “So thanks, I guess. For the great gift of this soup. You’re so fucking nice, _Krista_. What would I do if you weren’t here?”

A dark shadow settled over Eren’s form as Ymir wedged in between him and Historia, grasping him by the hair and knocking the back of his head viciously against the tree.

“Don’t you dare, you son of a bitch. Don’t use them to hurt her. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look at her.”

“How about you let go of me, you fucking traitor,” Eren snarled. Ymir slapped him and grappled with Historia for the spoon.

“Give me that. Give it to me, I’ll do it. Go eat your own soup.” 

“I don’t want to eat this shit! Fuck off, Ymir!”

Historia was too flustered to leave and so held onto the bowl with frightful will, but Ymir did claim the spoon. She let go of Eren’s hair to grip at his jaw, squeezing into the gap between his top and bottom teeth so that he could not close his mouth. She furiously dug into the soup and tipped the spoon inside, then clamped her hand over his lips.

It was no use. He tore free and spat it all loose in a spray over Historia, a leaf sticking next to her brow and a chunk of rabbit plopping wetly into her collar.

Reiner clapped his hand to his knee as he rose, stern-mouthed and glittering with the bright eyes of a predator in the dark. Historia was shaking, jaw clenched as Ymir rushed to wipe off her face. Both were pushed aside as Reiner loomed over Eren, who had tossed himself to the ground and rolled over so that his hysterics were muffled in the grass. It was indiscernible if it was laughter or tears. 

Lifting him free put a stop to it. Eren’s stumps dangled under him. Reiner had him by the collar and hefted him into the air like a kitten. Albeit a furious one: Eren kicked, swung his arms to hit, but with only the stumps left to him it looked like less of a rebellion and more the futile squirming of a newborn baby.

“PUT ME THE FUCK DOWN, YOU ASSHOLE!”

Bert uncurled from his own perch to snap at him, hurt and embittered, “Shut up!” 

“PUT ME DOWN, REINER! I SWEAR I’LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR!” 

Historia began to cry and turned her face away from the sight. Eren was hefted up and entrapped against Reiner’s shoulder, his diminished form still writhing for freedom even with his rear in the air and his head knocking against Reiner’s back. 

“Give me the damn bowl,” Reiner demanded, crouching as Ymir passed it off to him. She wiped the fallen spoon on her pants before offering that as well. 

“You’re wasting your time,” she advised sourly. He paid her no heed, and took both Eren and the soup along with him as he stomped into the trees.

They stopped by the creek that they had scooped the water from earlier. Reiner trod down the bank and chose a seat on the slope of grass above the divide of muck and stones. They were some distance away from the makeshift camp, far enough that Eren’s fits wouldn’t disturb the other three and that was about all the distance he was willing to risk. Reiner put the bowl down first before he tugged the squirming boy down to his knee.

The first thing Eren did was shove his weight to the side and flop onto the grass. Reiner was emptied of all patience by this point and only tugged him upright by his collar, welding Eren’s back to his chest with a thick forearm around his middle. The stubs were still wriggling, as if Eren kept forgetting there weren’t hands or feet at the end to strike with. The right was digging uselessly into Reiner’s sternum, pushing with no traction and hardly a lick of strength. There wasn’t enough bone yet to strap a bicep to. 

“When will you stop?” Reiner bemoaned. He rattled Eren callously. “Knock it off.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Harsh words were no deterrent. Reiner tried forcing the spoon into his mouth and had no luck, so he laid Eren flat on his lap instead, pinching his nose and letting gravity do the work for him. That had him gargling and coughing, spittle leaking out the sides of his mouth at times, but Reiner wiped it away with his thumb and kept at it until Eren had given up on drowning himself with creek and rabbit soup. Once he started swallowing Reiner let him prop up his head a little against one raised leg and let go of his nose, so that he could open his mouth on his own and close his lips over the spoon to suck it dry. Eren’s eyes were resolutely closed. He probably didn’t appreciate the view.

They made it a little more than half through when Eren relapsed, turning his face away with his lips twisted shut. “Are you serious?” Reiner snapped. “Don’t be such a pain.”

“I don’t want—“ he had to cut himself off with a clack of his teeth because Reiner had tried to push the spoon in while he spoke. “Don’t, you fuck! Not like this!”

“How else are you going to eat?”

“I’ll eat when my arms grow back!”

“They’re not gonna grow back if you don’t eat.”

Rolling off would be difficult but Eren vied for it anyway, thrusting his shoulder up and hurling his hip off the ground until Reiner clamped down on him, pinning him to his thigh. Eren hissed and banged his head fruitlessly against his leg. “I can’t like this! Don’t just keep shoving shit in my mouth!”

“Well you didn’t give me a damn choice! You are going to stop being a fucking baby and eat, even if this is the only way to—”

“YOU ARE _NOT_ MIKASA!”

Her name was a curse. Both of them turned mute as it rang in the air between them. Reiner had to stop bullying him with the spoon and really listen, really look. Though it was dark still he caught the wet glimmers at the ridges of Eren’s eyes. Gruff panting and a gruesome grimace did nothing to stop the coming quake. Reiner could feel even the muscles in his back seizing against his leg as Eren made every effort to stop the inevitable. “She pulled this same shit on me. She made me eat…”

Reiner still clutched the spoon between his fingers but made no further advances. He could see her doing it. If Eren put up a fuss Mikasa was, without fail, the first one to stamp it down. She would blaze in with her black hair flying and steel in her stare. A perfect fury. Terrifying.

But shy. Turning away rather than voicing her running thoughts, and tucking her nose into her scarf when her bluntness backfired on her. Hide as she might, she still burned so bright with how much she cared. Even Reiner, who scarcely got more than the time of day out of her, could see that.

Hearing and seeing nothing more from the boy above him, Eren shuddered, snorted back an ugly sound and attempted to hide his face away. All he acheived was knocking his brow against Reiner’s knee and laying a wet patch onto his coarse trousers. Fight as he might, Reiner still caught the miserable moan and felt the tears soaking on his leg.

It seemed a cruel now to try continuing. Reiner set the spoon aside and subsequently found himself robbed of all sense of direction. He couldn’t think what was appropriate to do with his hands. He’d get bitten or snarled at or something, surely, but sitting around to watch Eren sob himself to pieces on his lap was nothing short of torment.

“She might have…” He stopped to gingerly pat one shoulder and was predictably shoved away. “Look. They would have turned back at some point. They’d have no choice.”

“She wouldn’t.” Eren growled. “You know she would have kept chasing us.”

He searched for more solid escapes, and came up near empty. Mikasa would have set herself on fire if it meant keeping Eren warm. “Someone might have made her go back,” he tried. He was going to choke on his own bullshit if he had to keep doing this. 

Eren’s laugh was searing, white hot. Like a branding iron to the ears. “Just stop it, you bastard. You’ve killed them all and that’s it. That’s the end.”

“You think I wanted to?”

He moaned again. It was worse than any sound he had made under the blades of Reiner’s swords. “Shut the fuck up, Reiner.” Hiccups began to punctuate his every sob. His whole body jerked with the force of it. “Leave me alone. Go away.”

“You think you’re the only one grieving? You think –“ Reiner’s own throat was swelling. He knocked his fist into his eye, holding it there as his lips curled back over gritted teeth. His insides felt like torn skin, freshly severed to the bone. “I didn’t _want_ it to be them. Neither of us did.”

“Don’t…”

“No,” Reiner moaned and curled himself over. Eren was trapped in with him and immediately set to scrapping again. It was all useless, all muffled under Reiner’s chest and the arms he had slipped around Eren’s back, crushing them together in a bitter embrace. In a flash, he could see Connie’s grin, wide and wicked after finishing some kind of mischief or making Sasha blush. Connie of all people was the one that stuck to his mind now, that tiny moron. “You don’t fucking get it, Eren. We couldn’t – what choice did we have?”

“If you don’t stop talking I am going to—“

He pulled back, snatching Eren’s head in both hands, thumbs at the corner of his eyes as the accusations burned at him, lit coals and roasted him from the inside out. “Shut up, Eren!” Reiner ordered. “You have no idea – you don’t know what you’re talking about, you have no idea what it’s like to have stood next to all of you, every day, knowing – you think we don’t know how shitty a person you’d have to be…”

Eren’s tears were crowding his thumbs. The boy was gasping under him. Nose crinkled, red from bridge to tip and spread out to his cheeks. The green of his eyes had turned navy in the dark shadows, but the water glimmered around them, driving stakes into Reiner’s chest. Pulling him in. 

He had to do something. Death was irreparable. The damage he’d done besides was insurmountable. But here and now, with Eren’s lips parted and his teary eyes blinking up at him and his tiny body whittled down to the joints, Reiner knew he was chained to him until he could set things right.

Kissing him probably wasn’t the best solution. 

His heart pounded as he pulled back. He hadn’t dared linger. There would be teeth if he did. He was still close enough for Eren to catch him if he wanted, their noses nearly brushing. All struggling had ceased under him. All breathing, too, and Reiner drew further back to make sure he hadn’t done something else wrong, that Eren would be all right.

He wasn’t. Not if there was any sign to be read in those wide eyes and gaping mouth that drew no air. Eren blinked. Swallowed. Ran his bottom lip under his front teeth. That singular motion set something loose in Reiner’s gut, dropping down lower and sitting far more comfortably than the rest of the jabs and burns and scrapes Eren unleashed on him. 

Eren’s nose wrinkled again. A precursor for the sudden jab upward Reiner was forced to dodge, expecting a bite. But instead there was a pained little gasp as Eren’s head knocked against his legs, and his shoulders rolled, stubs pointed upwards as he reached with phantom limbs for Reiner. Eren lurched again, this time from his middle and with a grunt for the extra effort, and caught Reiner’s lips with his own. No bites. Just a furious suction of air as gravity yanked him down to slam against his legs, panting. 

Reiner paused. Baffled.

Then in the next instant they were welded together, Reiner snaking his arms around Eren’s willowy frame and sheltering it with his own, kissing murderously. Mouths open. Tongues tied. Like lovers after years apart, and with all the gentility of a knife to a wound. There were teeth, but no blood was drawn. Just bitter bruises left on Eren’s lower lip, and on both of his own. Once or twice their tongues caught in the middle and they had to tug away to nurse the blaring hurt. Only for a moment, though, because the cool night air had turned to something unbearable on their barren mouths, and they had to reattach, reaffirm, become lost in the rhythm they bickered to find. It was hard to tell if it was Eren’s first kiss. It wasn’t Reiner’s. He had time to practice with a few girls and even a boy or two during training – one of the benefits of growing broad and tall before anyone else had – but nothing held the same fever as this. Nothing felt quite so similar to dodging the bites of Titans or the swipe of swords to the neck. 

But Reiner could not stop. His hand was already too tangled in Eren’s hair, harnessing him from behind. He had already swirled his tongue over the smaller boy’s, felt the underside of his teeth, the ridges at the roof of his mouth, felt his breath puffing against his face as he struggled to breathe through his nose. He was already travelling further, taking a taste of Eren’s jaw, taking a nip at the sharp edge below his ear. Already addicted to the way Eren was gasping directly into his ear. Even those desperate noises sounded angry. Nothing could divorce Eren from fury, not even a solid kiss, but it made Reiner’s blood pound deep and low and it made him thirsty in curious ways. The squirming body in his lap was too much. When Eren arched his back he could feel the muscles working for it, laboring twice as hard without hands to hold with or feet to brace. 

He could take that fury, that drive. He could take it now. He could show Eren his own. He could make him stand down. See reason.

Every inch, every square of him was buzzing and Reiner was sure that if someone were to approach them now and brush his skin with their fingers, they would be electrocuted. They’d seize and die from the power running between them. He grunted, severing his lips from the black bruise he’d been working up on Eren’s neck and tugged his head back with his hair as the handle. Gentility was a lost cause; he could have torn it off his scalp, but Eren was moaning and flushed red and bleary eyed and some part of Reiner wondered if he didn’t prefer this sort of brutality. He had never seemed the soft sort, except when dealing with Armin and that was because Armin was a boy spun out of glass. 

None of that held his concern now. Reiner was dead set on tearing the shirt away instead. His thick fingers yanked at the hem and laid Eren’s chest bare with one swoop. He had to leg go of his head to pull it off completely, and tossed it viciously aside. 

He’d seen Eren without his shirt before. He’d seen nearly all of him before: there was little privacy afforded in the training barracks or the bathhouses they washed in, and though Reiner was always respectable, eyes wandered. Eren was lithe. Wispy, no matter how many drills he ran. Muscles were coming but they didn’t surge out from the planes of his skin the way his own did. Eren simply could not put on the weight fast enough. In a few years when he had finished sprouting upwards like a bean stalk, perhaps, but for now he still teetered on that lanky border between boy and man. Reiner’s hands looked huge on him as they stroked, traced the lines of his ribs and cupped his waist. Every breath was punctuated with a frantic heave, the exhale curving his flat belly inwards. Reiner kissed him again and Eren nearly knocked them both unconscious with how eagerly he thrust upwards to meet him. 

His pants had become something of a torture. And there was a matching push into his stomach on Eren’s behalf. His ruined trousers were tenting under Reiner, and that only fueled him to kiss harder, ravage that little mouth with the plump bow lips and bite it, to squeeze and tug at his bared skin. To dip his hand under the waistline, slide down, and seize the flush of his backside.

He would be lying if he said he hadn’t given his ass a few considerations before. As thick as Eren was, far too blunt and dead in his stares to garner much romantic attention, he was a woefully attractive boy. Something to be admired from a distance, because vying for his attention was a fool’s errand, even for Mikasa.

But apparently not for Reiner.

Not with how he was mewling at the ruthless grab to his rear. The sound drowned and died down Reiner’s throat. He was even shimmying his hips, throwing the stumps of his thighs wider so that he could pretend to embrace Reiner by the waist. Eren broke the kiss for a moment, growling, “You fucking – had to cut them all fucking off –“ But he returned to kissing him, snatching a peck or two before letting it devolved into a mess of tongues inside wide open mouths again. 

Reiner took it as a sign to keep groping him, and did so enthusiastically. This was a better apology than he could give with words, anyway. 

He had to rip them apart again. As good as it felt to have Eren wriggling in his lap it wasn’t nearly enough, and he had to keep going. See more. Reiner pushed Eren further down and stuck a hand to his collar bone. The other set to fumbling with his fly and button, popping both open. Drawing down his barely-there pants. Watching his flushed cock arch and then spring free of the fabric. A hearty grumble rattled inside his chest and Reiner shoved the pants to the side too, banishing them along with the shirt. He shoved Eren further until his back hit the grass, leaning down to spit on his cock. Wrap his hand around it. Pump it. 

Eren hissed and groaned, arching against his grip. Reiner kept him down, though, and kept sliding his fist over it in reverence, in greed. He could scarcely breathe, watching the boy beneath him unravel. He needed a taste and he took it, tongue swiping up the underside of the cock and that had Eren writhing and choking on nothing but his own spit and air. He took more. Popped the head inside his mouth and suckled at it, bobbed up and down. It was only flesh and not particularly fresh at that, considering the hell they had been dragged through to get here, but it was making him ravenous. It should be Reiner’s, and he would prove it with whatever strength he had. Eren had to understand that. 

He wasn’t bowing yet though. Eren wasn’t succumbing, just using him. He could feel it in the way he flicked his hips up impatiently, pushing his cock deeper in. Not a limb to his name and he was still so damn arrogant. Reiner pulled off with a growl and froze at the sight of Eren’s face, flushed to capacity and spittle dribbling out of one corner of his mouth, eyes wrenched shut. He thrust upwards again to search out Reiner’s mouth.

“Come on…” Eren croaked, opening one eye.

“You come on,” Reiner ordered. He snatched Eren by the hips and flipped him over, his cheek jammed to the ground inelegantly as Reiner lifted his rear up in the air. It was round, but sumptuously muscled. He let his thumb drift into the crack and pull it wide. And there… “Good god,” he moaned. His own voice was a stranger to him. It rumbled through him like the snarl of a bear, drawing not from his lungs but straight from the dip of his loins.

Eren was shivering under him. He kicked a little. It was hard to take anything he did seriously when it was just pinched lumps rotating in thin air. Reiner regretted cutting everything off. He should have stopped at his arms. Like the rest of him Eren’s legs were lean and lengthy, and Reiner ached at the idea of how they might wrap around his hips, how it might feel to kiss the insides of his thighs. 

“Do something,” Eren snapped.

He wasn’t expecting Reiner to spit at his hole. He yelped, giving a pin-sharp gasp as Reiner chased it with the blunt end of his index finger. It rendered Eren mute, his reddened mouth drawing wider, eyes shut, craning his neck to push his face further into the grass. Reiner dipped it in further and was mesmerized by the warmth and the squeeze, by the sight of even such a small part of him disappearing inside Eren. He wanted to palm his cock so badly, it was murder, but he didn’t want to put Eren’s ass down yet. He spat again and pushed the wetness down further with his finger, teasing a second. He couldn’t resist temptation and jutted forward to bite into the plump curve. Eren was lost in a broken yowl and it put such a vicious twitch in his dick that Reiner had to set the boy down to unbutton himself, he couldn’t stand another moment caged in while having to listen to him cry like that.

When he withdrew his cock from his pants he immediately licked his hand before he set to pumping it. It stood rigid and wicked hot already, nearly painful to the touch for all the neglect it had endured. Even with his attention divided he couldn’t bear to leave Eren alone for long, wetting his fingers anew and pressing them back inside to the tune of Eren’s tapering groan. 

By this time tomorrow Eren would have more leg back. If he stopped being a brat and ate he might manage to pass the knee. Reiner could see him so clearly now, with his olive-skinned thighs spread wide before him, softly sloping into those pert cheeks. For the moment though, there were the stumps, and there was some perverse charm to be had in them as well. It made him look so childish. Helpless. Perhaps that was a bit perturbing but by now all Reiner wanted was to pin Eren down and show him who was boss. The kid was still fighting. He was pushing back to redefine the pace Reiner had set with his fingers, the stubborn little ass. (And forget his first kiss, was this his first time? It seemed less and less likely by the minute.) Reiner released his cock to hold him down by his back and piston his fingers in with renewed vigor. Eren yelped, and Reiner laid messy kisses down to the end of his left stump. The waning steam at the end tickled under his chin.

Both of them had withstood the torture far enough. Eren was sounding hoarser by the second even if all he had to do was lay there and pant, and Reiner was loathe to come from the lonely effort of his hand. With one last playful crook Reiner drug his fingers loose and smacked Eren’s ass with the flat of his palm. The boy barked and he did it again, following with a lascivious squeeze. The way the flesh bulged between his fingers would have made him come on sight two years ago. 

But Reiner wasn’t a virgin anymore, hadn’t been for a long time, and he could feel the eager pulse through the meat of his cock as he clambered over top of Eren, propped on one elbow and pointing himself downward. He had a sole moment of clarity: one last glob of spit to coat his dick again, because spit dried way too quickly and he was sincerely regretting not preparing for this when they were looting Shingansina (how could he predict he’d be fucking Eren before they hit home?) but they had to make due. “You okay?” he mumbled into his hair, kissing the crown.

Eren repaid him by clocking him in the nose with his skull. “Don’t _talk!_ ”

Trust him to turn back into a pissant the moment Reiner showed him some consideration. Reiner shoved his face into the grass and rubbed his nose liberally into the dirt, and dropped his hips down. 

Eren spluttered mindlessly against the ground. Nothing but the head inside and he was whimpering like a newborn kitten. He wriggled his hips and Reiner simply nudged in further. The heat of him was near unbearable. He hadn’t slept with another shifter before, he couldn’t stand to jeopardize his relationship with either Annie or Bertolt, so this was his first time and he had expected something like this, but nothing prepared him for the likes of it. And the grip – his cock was in a stranglehold. He might have messed up with his fingers. Maybe he ought not to have been so impatient. 

Too late now. Too sweet to turn back, and Eren had finally gone still. 

It wouldn’t be smart to try shoving as much in as possible yet, for either of their sakes. Reiner drew away and then rolled his hips for a soft press back in. And Eren, the little shit, tried to buck up and force his dick in harder in than Reiner was prepared for. 

“Move,” he was hissing. Reiner might have shoved his face in the dirt and kept a good hold on him but he had still wriggled just enough to shoot a one-eyed glare, piercing through the curtain of his dusky brown hair.

Enough was enough. 

The gagging was doing him more favors than any other sound Eren had made so far as Reiner threaded his arm around his throat. It was a tight headlock, only slightly more merciful than the one he had used to down him in the forest, back when he had been trying to beat him up with stumpy wrists. He didn’t want him unconscious now. That would be awful. Just one slice of humility would be nice, but Eren was going to fight to his dying breath for it and so Reiner had to as well. He would earn it. All the advantages were on his side and the only thing left to Eren’s name was his mulish pride. 

To hell with consideration. Reiner slammed down. Eren choked. He crashed into him again, and again, and he threw his own head back with a groan because even though he had intended it as revenge he was losing himself to the ecstacy of being sheathed to the hilt inside those slick, crushing confines. He didn’t pull out so much as just push himself around, and he loved how the fleshy mounds of Eren’s ass were squished up under his hips, how what was left of his legs jittered under his thighs, how he could feel him fighting for air: the swell of his lungs, the force of his coughs in his back and his throat, the hacking vibrating and bobbing his adam’s apple against the crook of his elbow, the splashes of hot desperate breath and the scraping whines that came with them. Reiner dug his nose into Eren’s hair. He had started to perspire there, and it only made him want to press closer. Impress his memory onto every bit of Eren he could, inside and out. He thrust in harder. He could feel his own pulse, omnipresent, like a living web within him, and he wondered if Eren could feel it beating against his skin.

There was a soft little burble and Reiner felt Eren trying to lift his shoulders, but it was the steamy hiss after that made him look up from the sanctuary of Eren’s scalp. The boy was grunting through the strangehold and stretching his nubs up. He was pushing the steam further. It had doubled in thickness, no longer translucent but a pearly white. The effort was burning him alive, but Eren was pushing anyway, and Reiner saw both arms burgeon just a little further, the curve of new muscle sprouting into being.

Then Eren collapsed in a ragged flop and the steam dissipated entirely. His threadbare gasp was so full of dismay that Reiner couldn’t help cooing at him. He laid his sympathy out in soft kisses to his hair and the shell of his ear. Eren cringed and whimpered and flexed every muscle he had, but did nothing more to fight him off. It was impressive that he could manage even that much, Reiner could admit, but he would be shocked if Eren got back his arms before tomorrow night. He needed to save his strength for that and the kid was drained near empty.

And it was showing. Finally. Reiner could pump and push as he pleased, drive into the unforgiving grip of his ass without fuss. Eren had laid his head to the side and let it loll along Reiner’s arm with his mouth open and eyes shut. Kittenish mewls and hiccups punctuated every roll of Reiner’s hips where before had been nothing but spits and growls. “You’re so fucking cute,” Reiner mouthed into his temple. A sentiment cemented when Eren whimpered and hid his face in Reiner’s arm rather than mouth him off. There was a first for everything.

Lovely and perfect and so damn hot as it all was, being fused together like this was stifling. His cotton shirt was soaked through from mingling sweat. With Eren complying so sweetly now he could take his chances and lift off, withdraw his arm from around his neck. Reiner pulled out below too, braced on all fours. The wretched night air was an assault on his hard cock as it slipped free. His brows joined together in a pained pinch over the sudden switch from boiling to frigid. But under him was Eren, his tiny body encased in shadow and muscles twitching, undulating under the skin and his ribs pressing out as he gulped for breath, and Reiner was struck utterly dumb. Eren without his arms or legs, shrunk down to fit perfectly snug in Reiner’s breadth. Eren sweating and wrecked from a hard fucking. 

He squirmed when Reiner picked him off the ground wholly. “What the hell, Reiner?”

“Just relax,” he urged, settling back upright and cuddling him to his chest. Errant locks of hair were trying to invade his mouth so Reiner nuzzled them away and kissed down the line of Eren’s neck. He held him high with one arm and used the other to point his cock at the right angle. And gently now, one hand on his hips and the other bracing him by the ribs, Reiner impaled Eren back onto his dick.

“Oh—“ Eren gulped. Fidgeted and tilted his hips this way and that. Adjusting. Reiner kept his guide steady and slow until they were just about sealed back together, ass to groin, and felt his heart might burst from the eager pounding. It was terrible that he was so unskilled with art of any sort: if he could he would immortalize how his cock was vanishing between those cheeks. And he hadn’t noticed before, but there were haphazard scribbles etched into Eren’s rear and tiny circles drawing a wavering line up his spine. They were the wrinkles of his pants, still on and unzipped, and his shirt buttons, painted on Eren’s skin through their feverish rutting. Any fantasies Reiner had been secretly harboring were reduced to waste, one by one, in light of reality. It was the little details like this that put all his imaginings to shame.

He couldn’t keep up such a fast pace when he had to lift or push him for every turn, no matter how light Eren was now, so Reiner made up for it in intensity. He slid him up until Eren could just about slip free, the rim of the head showing, and then rammed him back down. The first slam had him spluttering. Eren spasmed all over. His hips had jutted forward, and inside him Reiner’s cock swerved at angles he had yet to try. He saw stars. He tried it again. Eren wriggled less but yelled louder. His back was now arched, head tossed, and Reiner switched his grip on the ribs to clamp around the nape of his neck. Eren’s simpering egged him on, three times, four times, and after the sixth a real rhythm was set and Eren’s plaintive requests of, “Harder, _harder,_ ” came through such a husky rasp Reiner had to lean closer to make sure he had heard him right.

Eventually he was reclined, a knoll in the creek bank letting him keep his back against a solid brace as he carried on shoving Eren onto his cock. His arms were tired but he was so damn close, and Eren was gorgeous in his helplessness, every edge of him lit with the blue light of the moon. Reiner had spent the last twenty seconds watching a single bead of sweat roll its way down as he fucked him. It passed over the ridge of Eren’s shoulder blade, the ribs, that damnable dip in his lower back and finally out and over the round of his ass. 

When he came he almost bellowed, and had to stifle it by slamming his mouth against Eren’s blazing skin and crushing the boy to his chest. His own hips jittered and lifted off the grass to squeeze every last inch of him inside. Eren kept gasping, kept on squirming and rubbing Reiner’s shirt to chafing, pressing his shoulder up to combat the piercing hold Reiner’s teeth had on it. He only stilled when he felt the vulgar, beastly rumble erupt out of Reiner’s chest and splash against his skin. The only thing left for Eren to do was keep on gasping.

And come himself. When Reiner took his mouth off the shoulder through the haze of aftershocks he still had enough presence of mind to realize that Eren was still agonizingly hard. In theory that was for the best, Reiner had heard that getting penetrated could be painful if it went past a certain limit, but there was a niggling disappointment creeping through his high all the same. 

No matter. He could free his hands now. 

Without withdrawing, Reiner relaxed back and let Eren fall against him, one hand spread wide on his belly. Brushing lightly. When he took the other hand to Eren’s mouth the other boy seemed to understand implicitly, kissing the palm before licking it in a broad stripe. Throaty moans dogged his every stroke from the instant he wrapped his hand around Eren’s cock, brown-black hair draping over his collar bone and tickling the skin as he let his head roll back and fluttered his eyes closed. Reiner could kiss his cheek now and did so, relishing in his scent, his delight. A salty wetness hit his lips from the outside and he pulled away to find a tear had leaked out. Eren was sniffling, too, lip bit hard between his teeth.

“Hey,” Reiner whispered. He stilled his hand and nuzzled closer. Eren gave a choked sob.

“No, no, keep—“ He did his best to thrust his hips. “Reiner, please…”

“If you’re hurt—“

“Don’t even start, asshole.” The bite in his bark was a lot easier to bear when it was coming from a throat gone raspy and held all the breathy exhaustion you would expect moments after a roll in the hay. Reiner supposed it was just that. Exhaustion. He set back to it, and even reluctantly obeyed when Eren ordered him to grip it tighter. 

Eren probably did have a penchance for pain. It figured. It would explain how he was losing it now and how he had kept on goading Reiner from start to finish. A dark flush had painted itself from Eren’s forehead down to his sternum. His cock was wickedly hot in his hands, and slick, the head dribbling precum until Reiner felt that telling twitch.

As a courtesy he pushed his other hand over Eren’s mouth and whispered to him, “Bite down.” Eren’s sharp teeth nearly split open the heel of his palm. The suppressed scream sent a shiver through them both, and Eren’s come shot into the grass between Reiner’s open legs.

They both needed some time to rest after that. Eren stayed in his lap but Reiner had the decency to lift him off his waning cock at last, turning him around and cuddling him close. He kissed him lazily, and did not mind when Eren seemed too despondent to repay the favor. He supposed he was something of a sap but when he thought about tomorrow, and returning home, he liked the idea that things might end like this. Eren warm and snug against him in the dark. 

“It doesn’t have to be so hard, Eren.” He drew his knuckles through Eren’s fine hair, drying out the damp. “There isn’t a future inside the walls. But home…”

Eren’s eyes were dulled, low lidded, and his gaze could somehow still gut a man. The silence lingered until he deigned to swallow, and reply, “I’m tired, Reiner.”

That was all he could get for now. Reiner huffed, but patted his back and kissed his brow. “Should probably finish the soup first though.”

It was cold by now but Eren still gulped it down, chewed through the lean rabbit and leaves and tilted his head back when Reiner tipped the rest of the bowl in. It was up to Reiner to take care of the rest, washing the come from his cock and Eren’s ass with cold stream water and buttoning them both back up. Evidence erased. Eren was silent throughout.

When they walked back to camp, Eren settled on his hip, all three met them with perplexed stares. Everything had been repacked and Bertolt’s gear was back on, ready to swing up into the trees for the day. Reiner set a much more muted Eren than the one he’d left with down by the tree trunk, and wordlessly slipped the belt harness back on. There wasn’t anything to say about it. No one else had to know. 

Though he caught Ymir’s gaze straying to a thin, near invisible thread of steam from Eren’s neck where Reiner had bit him, and she popped a brow in his direction. And when Reiner looked to Bertolt for the cue as to who was carrying who, he found him burning at the cheeks and his mouth drawn grimly straight. He didn’t dare look to Historia.

No one said a word about how Reiner kept Eren at his side even in the tree tops, and let him fall asleep over his legs with a hand resting over his chest. It wasn’t their business.

And they could see for themselves tomorrow, if they wanted. Things would change. Things were finally looking up. Reiner smiled as he closed his eyes, and dreamt of home in vivid greens and smiling faces.

~*~

His father was a man of medicine. Scrapes or coughs or broken bones, he could soothe each and every colicky hurt back to health. Eren saw him as some sort of grand worker of miracles when he had been little. Who else could reach inside a person and turn all the wrong things right?

Time pushed on though, and Eren heard that some people perished, some people stayed blemished forever no matter what tricks his father pulled. The worst was a girl who had spent most of her days screaming and beating anyone who wandered too closely. She wouldn’t wash, and Eren remembered that the foul smell pervaded the floor and the walls of the house as if she had rubbed herself along each slat, chasing the grain of the wood until the scent was soaked through to the core. He was told to go play with her baby brother while his father inspected her for wounds or sickness, and spent the hour in petulant silence. Once the adults had left them alone the boy had told him he looked like a worm and Eren had pushed him into the dirt. They sat pouting on opposite ends of the steps until their parents returned. The mother and father were pleading, begging him to check more, that maybe there was an injury to her insides, but Eren’s father was resolute.

He couldn’t cure her. Not even with a bandage or ground herbs. The problem lay not in some concealed wound, but in her mind. She was born mad, he had said, and the best advice he had was to place her in the care of some boarding house, far away in a neighboring town, where she would be with others like her and under supervision of those who could deal with her. 

Eren had left that house mortified. 

After some time he could see it in degrees, in other patients his father was called to tend to and in the crowds on the street. There was a lot of madness to be had among the refugees of Wall Rose, trembling and grief stricken. And there was the madness of the men who had killed Mikasa’s parents and took her to that dank cottage. There were the cackling beggars that mothers and their children crossed the street to avoid. 

Then there were those that could walk amongst the populace with no one being the wiser. But they were still made wrong. Made all the wrong choices, said the wrong things, walked with bounces in their steps into the traps they had strewn about for themselves with no care for reason. They preferred their miseries and would rather sink to their death with them than release the dead weight. 

Not for the first time, Eren wondered if he was that kind of mad. A wrong that could not be righted. It would explain why he had let Reiner fuck him to pieces last night. 

He was the first to wake, as far as he knew. His sleep had been as black as a knock to the head, and dreamless. He tore out of it in a fit, lifting away from Reiner’s legs with a gasp until he’d gathered his wits enough to think, resting back again. If he wriggled too much he might wake him, so he had to stay still and watch the fading sunlight through the tree canopy. 

Below them Titans shuffled. He could hear them crushing bushes underfoot.

His arms had grown considerably, past the elbow already, while his legs had yet to hit the knee. They were cold. It looked like he was in nothing but his underpants, with only his rear covered and his thighs bared to the wind. Eren grimaced down at them, pressing them closer together in a bid for warmth and modesty. The steam was still thin, but rose with a greater confidence than it had yesterday. 

A hiss to his left had him looking over to the branch where the girls had coiled up for the day. Historia was awake too. She mouthed to him, “You okay?”

Eren glowered and lifted a crippled arm. He would have raised her his middle finger if he had it. Historia shook her head and pointed gingerly at Reiner. “Last night,” she clarified soundlessly.

He stared. His arm was still thrust into the air, frozen. What did she expect him to say?

There was a flush growing on his cheeks. He turned away from her, which forced him to dig his face into Reiner’s pant leg and present him with a view of his belly and the pack he had strung off one shoulder. She hissed at him again and he pretended not to hear. 

It wasn’t as if he’d never passed a night in the barracks with his cock tucked in a lazy fist and Reiner’s hands on his mind. But those were the wispy dreams of a little boy, pining after one of the first strangers to show him kindness since his Mother died. And it had nothing to do with the here and now, how his insides had been replaced with shattered glass from neck to groin. He hated Reiner and he hated Bertolt. It was mortifying to have them spooning up his food, to deal with Historia’s putrid sympathy and Reiner’s blades on his limbs, and Bertolt’s bitter glances, Ymir’s indifference. Everything made him sick, every step and each breath, and slivers of the people left behind jabbed and slashed at him until he was bled dry and delirious. 

Eren wished he could vomit. His gut twisted and turned and swirled itself into loops and knots, and he thought that he might, but nothing came up. They had called him a monster in the court. He lived to prove them right, he supposed. 

He frowned suddenly. Sticking out of the pack there – was that the neck of a wine bottle?

Eren scooted upwards. Thinking. Reaching out with his stump to brush the bag, perhaps pull down the lip a bit more so he could see if there was a label. 

Instead the bag slid away and dropped. Reiner’s arm lashed out to snatch it by the straps, and Eren’s gut clenched. It was settled back against the tree and the strap relooped around that broad shoulder.

“What were you doing?” Eren flinched when fingers trailed through his hair. He found Reiner blearily blinking down at him, thumb stroking his temple. 

“Is that wine?” he asked. 

“Yeah. Were you looking for a drink?” Reiner snorted. “Little early in the morning for wine.”

Eren swallowed down the ungainly lump that had swelled in his throat. Looking at Reiner’s face might make him go blind. “It’s night.” 

“Morning for us.” Reiner yawned, rolling his broad shoulders back. The typically forgiving shirt drew taught over his front and Eren was transfixed by sight and by memory. Reiner had never removed his clothing but his chest had been all but etched into Eren’s skin for life. He gave a shudder. Reiner pulled out of the yawn with furrowed brows. “You’re cold.”

“I’m not.”

He found himself hoisted upright and clutched close regardless, his back to that burly chest and thick thighs underneath him. The sweat prickled at his neck like needles prodding for veins. Reiner’s arms were slung around his middle, though Eren felt the right twitch down as if to cup his leg. Whatever unsavory notions he had were abandoned for now, and Reiner behaved. Eren hoped desperately that someone might spare him a pair of pants today.

More important was that this put Reiner’s mouth by his ear. He stiffened at the soft press of lips against the rind, and the start of a whisper. “Don’t worr—“

“Good _Morning!_ ” 

Reiner startled so badly that Eren nearly flopped off the branch and into the waiting Titan jaws below before the larger boy reclaimed his hold on him. Eren could almost forgive Krista for that.

Historia.

Whatever she was calling herself now.

~*~

The Titans took a leisurely time to slow down to a stop, and even then it was elected that they should swing some distance away from their treetop camp before settling on the ground. Bertolt and Reiner got into a brief row over who would carry whom, as neither was willing to sacrifice his gear to the girls. Eren’s name was parried back and forth several times. Reiner relented his rights if only to keep the peace, carting Historia on his back and two packs slung from his shoulders as while Ymir waited for a free turn. Bertolt clattered onto Eren’s branch with a tight frown. The tips of his ears were brimming red, and he gave Eren no greeting.

“Isn’t this too tight?” gasped Eren, who had found his stumpy arms wrenched together yet again by rope. 

“Didn’t you try to strangle me with your legs yesterday?” Bertolt said softly. He flicked a glare to Eren like the whip of a blade. He tugged them even more cruelly and looped the knot. 

Eren’s lip curled. “Didn’t you break a wall somewhere?”

Bert was plum purple in a flash. “ _Shut up_ ,” he hissed. “And don’t you –“ He paused dead. Ymir was pretending not to eavesdrop on the next branch over, but neither was fooled, and even if both kept their voices as low as they could she would hear everything. He shook Eren’s bindings in an effort to menace. “Just leave Reiner alone.”

The outrage was little better than a plunge through thin ice. The tiny hairs rose all down his stunted arms. He ought to kill him. If he had a little more leg he could try swinging one at Bertolt, knock him off and hope he was going to be agreeable and forget how the gear worked before he hit the ground. 

Instead Eren had to bite back the dozen hot retorts he had queued at the ready, and allowed the taller boy toss him over his shoulder like a burlap sack. 

Reiner was the one delegated to return for Ymir, and Bertolt was free to pretend Eren didn’t exist now that he could deposit him on the ground and fish for breakfast in the packs. Historia, wordlessly, removed her cloak and forced it on Eren like an old matron. She tied it around his middle so that it would drape over his exposed legs. It would probably look like a beggar girl’s skirt, which was even worse somehow, but Eren thanked her with a dour grumble. To his relief she didn’t pull that simpering princess smile on him. All she gave was a terse nod, and that closed the matter. 

They travelled on foot for the rest of the day. Ymir elected to carry him, and though she complained about it most of the way she staunchly dodged every attempt the boys made at taking Eren over their own shoulders. Neither Bertolt nor Reiner seemed appeased by the arrangement, and everyone was sulking. Eren kept silent in his growing dread. He kept checking the horizon and the hills for signs of civilization. A curl of smoke, a thatched roof. Their village couldn’t be much farther. When that made him too nervous he took instead to watching the steam curl off his arms. 

By the time they hit a steep crevice, dipping down into plush forests at a nearly vertical incline, Eren had regained everything up to his wrists. His thighs even broached the knee, a small nub marking the birth of the caps, and not even Historia’s cape could grant him modesty now. The path Reiner and Bertolt knew had crumbled, apparently, and it took them a long while to locate an alternative. When the safety of the valley forest blanketed them at last and they all agreed to stop to eat, Eren had ten fingers up to the end of the first knuckle, and growing still.

Reiner rubbed them affectionately when he saw, and undid Bertolt’s bindings. “I’ll take him out for a piss,” he announced. Eren’s gut dropped in cold fear. Bertolt seemed about to protest but curiously halted himself, gulping and giving the most reluctant agreement he could. Historia and Ymir pretended to be very invested in finding the hunting gear amongst the bags, but Eren caught them both watching their retreat from the corners of their eyes.

Predictably, once they were safely out of earshot from the others and Eren was rendered mute by the warm press of Reiner’s muscles into his chest, he was laid down like an infant, fragile and revered, in a small dip between sprawling tree roots. Reiner kissed him again, and Eren’s cock was jumping just as badly as his heart.

It wasn’t like before. This was sweet and earnest. Slow as if they had all the time they wanted, as if no bitter feelings around the campfire, or that hundreds of people hadn’t died. Thousands, too soon and too brutally to comprehend. Reiner was a constant impression of strength and hard edges and it was so strange to have his hands skittering over the bared skin of his thighs, smoothing them in awe, as if Eren’s skin was tender velvet; strange to feel his lips in a caress instead a bruising press against Eren’s, mashing into his gums and teeth.

Before it was more akin to dogs in a scrap, nothing but bites and snarls and brutality and the fatal drive to tear the other apart. And in the thick of it all Eren had been consumed by the need to erase himself. Burn all the memories to charcoal. Ruin them. Flood his mind with something different, a new hurt to wash out the old. He was just so damn tired. And Reiner’s arms around his neck were like strangling chains. He could smother and plunge and grind him into the dirt and Eren had lapped it all up like a cat to a bowl of cream.

These new kisses were perfect. Sugary. It made his blood pound and not for fury.

All semblance of romance was obliterated when Eren chomped clear through Reiner’s lower lip, and clumsily rolled himself to the side to spit out the blood that had dribbled into his mouth. Reiner was fuming as he retreated, hand to his mouth even as steam erupted to knit the bite back together. “What the fuck do you want from me?”

No answers came to Eren. Just doubts. Pangs in his gut. So he flattened on his back and settled for the cruelest retort he could think of. “My Mom.”

The shock on Reiner’s face belonged to a man slyly stabbed from behind. His hand curled into a fist but he seemed to think better of hitting him, looking down from high at Eren’s halved form on the grass. He said nothing, but rose and turned his back to Eren, stalking back to the others and abandoning Eren to the mercy of strumming crickets and the winking stars above. Eren pressed his cheek to the grass and wished he could die.

He had only wanted Reiner to leave. There was no need to bring up his Mom. 

He was left alone to think for some time. Nothing terribly productive came of it, except that his misery was compounded tenfold now that his Mother was on his mind. One moment of bleary insanity had him thinking he could crawl away from the camp now that he had some of his hands. But with morning mere hours away and his legs healing by excruciating fractions, he doubted he’d be able to escape without being eaten once the sunlight hit. 

So he watched the stars instead. And thought. They would be at the village by tomorrow. With how snailish their progress was Eren was sure that he couldn’t grow his legs back in time to try turning into a Titan. His chances were fizzling down to the end of their wicks, blinking out one by one. 

Softer footsteps encroached. Eren tilted his head back laboriously to catch Ymir just as she began to lean over him, hands on her hips. 

“If you didn’t want him harassing you, you shouldn’t have let him stick it in,” she remarked with a sage shake of her head. “Guys are really dumb about that.”

“What would you know about it?” Eren muttered sourly.

“Ha ha. You and your jokes.” Rather than grabbing at him or even making to move him upright she dropped down beside him at arm’s length. Free of striking distance, though if Eren was determined he could roll closer. Her sigh was long and weary. “Still, though, who would have figured you liked it in the ass so much? No wonder Mikasa was always so constipated over you. She had all the wrong equipment.”

The thought of Mikasa was still a hot knife to his heart. Eren swallowed the swell of rage back, recognizing a lost cause for perhaps the first time in his life. “If you’re doing that thing where you’re being a bitch to distract me, then save it. I don’t want to hear it.”

She leaned closer, brow raised. “You’re pretty smart when you’re not being a psycho.”

He refused to acknowledge that. Ymir seemed utterly content with looking up at the sky and wriggling her toes in her boots, doing nothing about Eren’s predicament as she sat sweetly beside him. They let the silence linger. The two had barely spoken during their training days and neither was in a hurry to make up for lost time now. Yet when he took to watching her he saw her jaw was clenched oddly tight. And she didn’t even glare when she caught him staring.

Eventually Ymir did breach the gap, sighing with palpable irritation. “I guess I should drag you back before anyone thinks we’re fucking too.”

Eren glowered. “No one would ever think that.” 

She snorted at him again, graceless as ever, and remarked that it was clearly past his bedtime. She gathered him up and carried him at her hip like a toddler back through the trees, frowning in distaste the whole way. “Just stop being shitty to Historia, all right? She’s here because of me, not anything else.”

Eren said nothing. He didn’t understand either girl, and he didn’t think he ever would.

When they returned the scent of roasting birds had them salivating. Two partridges were browning over the fire on a peeled green branch for a skewer, and some dried fruits were being passed around in a sack. There was a bowl someone had topped off with dusty water. Ymir set Eren against the pack beside it. He refused to look at Reiner, though he could feel his eyes on him like a torch flame. Eren flushed, and fished through the pack with his stunted fingers for something to use as a cup. His fingers brushed a box. It was the one Reiner had shown him, with the medicine bottles in it. Eren pulled the sack closer to take a better look, wetting his lips.

“Is now really the time?” 

“When else, Bertolt?” Reiner had drawn out the wine, and was working the cork loose. “I could use a drink. You too.”

“You’d better be sharing,” Ymir interjected. Historia nodded next to her, albeit with some hesitance. 

Eren’s heart thudded. He wet his lips again. “Me too.”

Bertolt shot him a look of pure disgust. “No.”

The silence was cutthroat. Ymir and Historia watched the proceedings, unmoving: deer just before the sudden dart to safety. Eren could feel Reiner’s gaze on him hotter than ever, but he held Bertolt’s stare with a stubborn tilt of his chin and narrowed eyes.

“He can have a drink,” Reiner said slowly.

Defeat already nipping at his heels, Bertolt tucked his head low and muttered to the ground. “He’s not a _guest._ ”

“He deserves it just as much as the rest of us,” Reiner insisted. “Come on. We’re almost home. There’s enough for all of us. And tomorrow we’ll already be home.”

No one had anything to say to that. Eren’s heart boomed in his ribs, swelling in his ears. He rummaged a little more, then drew his newfound cup from the sack and took a swig from it as Reiner popped the cork and trekked around the fire to pass him the wine. 

Eren set his cup down and closed his lips around the bottle the moment it was in his misshapen hands. He thrust it up, and tore it loose when he was done with a sour gasp and a wince. Reiner seemed amused, if a little shocked, as Eren wiped vehemently at his mouth and spat out the last traces of the taste. 

“That bad?” He took a sizeable sample himself and winced just the same as Eren. “Wow. It’s sweet.”

“In a bad way?” Historia pressed, reaching up for the bottle next. Reiner passed it to her and took a new seat next to Eren, the heat from his skin putting shivers through his own. 

“Yeah. Kinda. Still wine though.” 

Bertolt was glaring at him some more, but Eren didn’t pay him any attention now. He sat stiff-backed, crushing his spine into the bark of the tree and watching as the bottle made its way around the fire, drained by a succession of heavy gulps. Reiner let his hand drift to brush against his own in the grass. Eren choked on a sob when he linked their little fingers together, but he did not pull away. 

The birds blackened on their makeshift spit.

~*~

It was an unpleasant awakening already, and she had yet to open her eyes.

Historia’s brows were tense and meeting in a furrow, as if she could scowl her queasiness away. Her head pounded too. She felt as if she could sleep for a hundred years and not feel rested. 

All the same she huffed and rolled her head over in the grass to open her eyes. Bertolt was sleeping unusually close to her. They were nearly nose to nose. She blinked at him in his slack-jawed slumber. The fire was dimming, so perhaps it was only the shift in the light, but he looked quite pale.

She heard felt Ymir’s hand clap onto hers. She heard sobbing. She smelled it before she realized what she was seeing, the grass around her darkened to black in the shadows and the wetness across her own front, little droplets and a splash against her sleeve. 

Bertolt’s head ended in a frayed, leaking stump below his jaw. The rest of his body was the respectful distance he’d been sitting at before, now slumped over and gaping open at the neck. None of the spilled blood steamed, and nor did the wound. 

Historia couldn’t scream. 

She gagged, barely containing the bile, and Ymir tugged her arm and she immediately rolled over, slapping her hands at the other girl and whispering, “Ymir! _Ymir!_ ”

The sobbing took to a crescendo. 

Ymir pulled her upright, clutching her close. The taller girl was looking across the dying fire and the charcoal birds laid to waste on their spit, stony and eyes terror wide. 

Eren was strewn over Reiner’s limp body, hands ensnared in his collar, and he quivered in time with his miserable moans. He had his face tucked against his chest, just over his heart, as if he had been listening for the beat. Reiner’s severed head was toppled next to them and partly hidden by a shaft of tall weeds. The swords from Reiner’s gear were tossed to the side, sticky with blood. 

The pack had fallen over too. An elegant and empty bottle lay turned on its side in the flattened grass where Eren had been sitting. Its label, peeling and faded, read “DWALE”. An anaesthesiac. 

Eren had been a doctor’s son, Historia remembered suddenly. And he’d pulled a cup out from the pack, already full, and drained it before he even touched the wine. 

“Eren?” Ymir ventured, in a voice far fainter than Historia could ever recall her using.

“I’m _sorry._ I’m so sorry,” he croaked back, stopping to heave and let his tears run fresh and fast. Taut wrinkles grew in the cotton of Reiner’s shirt when his clutch turned desperate, raking his nails over the prone chest. He pulled upright as if drawn by chains, eyes spilling over with ceaseless tears and his face flushed, bloodied from where he had been pressing it against Reiner. He couldn’t look either of them in the eye. “I didn’t want it to be _them,_ I didn’t _want_ to. But I promised – even if everyone’s gone. Even if I’m a weakling piece of shit after all, I _promised._ For everyone.”

He lost himself again in the empty curve of Reiner’s shoulder, rubbing his forehead there. Historia could see new blood wiping onto his skin and his hair. Tremors rode down the line of his spine as if to shake the bones apart. The last of his confession was nearly lost to the cold crook of Reiner’s neck. “What choice did I have?”


End file.
